Eschatology And The Hidden Imam--And The US

The Geek is not a big fan of the Fox network's approach to news. Not that he has much brief with all the other television "news" sources either. However, this time kudos can go quite deservedly to the Mighty Murdoch Outlet.

Last Monday Fox news--and only Fox among American MSM--covered an important story from al Arabiya. In a characteristically rambling interview Iran's President and Orator-in-Chief, Ahmadinejad, stated he had "documentary evidence" proving the US was acting to prevent the return of the Hidden Imam, the Mahdi.

The importance of this small story lies not in its inherent absurdity but rather in the insight it provides regarding the world view of Ahmadinejad--and many others involved in the governing of Iran. Put quite simply the world view is eschatological in nature. That means it is focused not on the world and time as such currently exist but on the time after time, the world after the present world ends.

Eschatological world views are not the sole province of Shia believers. Nor is it the possession of Muslims alone. There exists a large number of Christians who share this "end times" view of life both present and future.

However, Christian Evangelicals do not possess nuclear weapons. Neither are they seeking to acquire this end-of-the-world capacity.

Yes, there is a strain of Jewish thought that might be characterized as end times oriented. There are Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox members of that faith who await the coming of the Messiah. Within this group there are a few who see the Messiah coming only as the world collapses in blood and destruction. It is, however, quite doubtful that this sort of mentality controls Israel's version of the Big Button, the mythical push-to-kill feature which would launch the Samson Option.

Things are quite different at the top levels of the Iranian semi-theocracy. Both Ahmadinejad and his mentor, Ayatollah Mezbah Yazdi, (who is also a member of the very important Assembly of Experts), believe strongly in the coming of the Mahdi. More, they believe to the depths of their souls that human action can hasten the returning of the Hidden Imam.

Basically, the human actions which must be taken to hurry along the coming of the Mahdi fall in two categories. One of these is consolidating and expanding the theocratic hold on all Iranians. This implies the necessity of suppressing all internal dissent not simply because it is a threat to the political structure of the state but because it is inherently evil, the product of Satan.

The second task ordained by their "divine mission" comes under the rubric of "international." The Iranian president and his ilk use this precise term in ways which are not customary elsewhere in the world.

The "international tasks" imposed by the "divine mission" are oriented toward bringing about the Shia version of Apocalypse. The most common understanding of the return of the Hidden Imam focuses upon the necessity for widespread death and destruction. Death and destruction which centers on the Mideast.

To this end President Ahmadinejad and his fellow True Believers have provided assistance to terrorist groups in countries ranging from Lebanon to Yemen. They have fostered religiously based political violence in a host of states across the Arab and Muslim world. Lastly, but far from least important, they have pursued the acquisition of nuclear weapons with a singleness of purpose which would be laudable were it not so potentially dangerous.

Three years back the defense and intelligence communities warned the Bush/Cheney administration of the eschatological nature of the Iranian regime as well as the implications of this orientation for US policy. It is evident that these warning were not taken seriously by the Deep Thinkers and Great Strategists of the time.

It is equally evident that the current administration is equally unconcerned about the relationship between eschatological True Belief and our efforts to dissuade Tehran from seeking their own personal end-the-world-as-we-know-it capacity. A blunt ground truth is that mere diplomatic isolation, sanctions, and the rest of the panoply of coercion short of war will be quite counterproductive. The power of nations is nothing compared to the potency of a divine mission.

The more pressure is placed on Iran, the more intransigent the country's leadership will be. If Russia and China were to join the Western countries in a new round of sanctions, the results will be a further stiffening of Iranian resistance. In the eschatological world view, the opposition is not to be treated as a warning, a cautionary note, but rather as the plain indication that divine will is being tested.

Not even the threat of an Israeli attack will exercise a deterrent effect. If the coming of the Mahdi depends upon the Apocalypse, then an Israeli attack and its aftermath serves as well as one launched by the Great Satan. To the eschatologists of Iran the Apocalypse is not to be avoided but welcomed, not retarded but hastened.

To many in the US, the West generally, the power of True Belief, particularly a True Belief rooted in both the necessity and desirability of the world as we know it coming to a bloody end, is difficult to fathom. Almost impossible to accept. Our view of life, of international relations, of the way the world should operate, is predicated upon the supremacy of rationality.

That fervent faith in the power of reason is our legacy from the Reformation and the generations which followed it. Our faith in the power of reason seems to have been recurrently justified by the accomplishments of Western science, technology, even politics and economics. We are all that we are today--wealthy, free, advanced in our toys and necessities alike--because reason has triumphed.

Yet there are other forms of reason. The rationality of the eschatological True Believer is not one which is warped. Neither is it the product of delusion. The desire for the Mahdi, the "divine mission" of seeking the early return of the Hidden Imam, is not divorced from reason.

Rather, the foundation truth with which we must deal is that the rationality of Ahmadinejad and others like him come from predicates different from ours. They grow rationality from a set of axioms not found widely in the West these past several centuries, but that does not make them any less powerful, any less real, any less of a threat.

If anything the different axioms make for a result far more risky for the world.

Back To Business--Iraq And Democracy

When the neocons of the Bush-Cheney justified the Great Adventure in Regime Change, two points which were made almost to the point of occasioning projectile vomiting--at least on the part of the Geek. No, not the WMD allegations. No, not the contention that Saddam was a thoroughly icky-poo person given to brutal dictatorship and bouts of aggression.

These are the two points.

Iraq deserved democracy of the more-or-less American sort complete with an independent judiciary, a federal system, pluralism, separation of faith and state, an unfettered media and, last but most certainly not least, robust free enterprise--of a properly regulated sort.

The war effort would not cost the taxpayers a doggone red cent. In fact, the US would make a profit since our companies would have an inside track on the post-war contracts including those for developing new oil fields.

Well, golly, gee, didn't that sound just grand?

Sure. If one was ignorant of such trivia as Iraqi history; the effects of prolonged internal war; the nature of Iraqi political, social, and ethnic dynamics; and the role of nationalism in the Iraqi concepts of self. Or, to put it simply and in translation: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

As if the displacement of Saddam Hussein's regime never occurred, the Iraqi government and military are favoring France in the award of contracts covering infrastructure repair and expansion as well as military procurement. In turning away from American companies and embracing French, the government of Nuri al-Malaki is not only rolling the clock back to the Seventies when France was the number one source of weapons, it is deliberately sticking its thumb in the eye of Uncle Sam.

The favoring of French companies is not so much a triumph of Nicholas Sarkozy's personal diplomacy as it is akin to declaring "great victory" as the American troops withdrew from Iraqi cities the other day. It is an expression of nationalism, of sovereignty. It is a carefully calculated gesture of ingratitude meant to solidify Maliki's credentials as a genuine Iraqi nationalist.

Maliki has ambitions. Further, he has made no attempt to hide this reality.

Chief among these is his stated desire to rid Iraq of the "consensus democracy" which was a product of the years of transition under the heavy-handed procounsulship of Paul Bremer. The current Iraqi prime minister admits that the consensus approach might have been necessary at the beginning of the post-Saddam, post-Baath period, but it has outlived its usefulness.

Maliki is now calling for an end to the special "set-asides" built into the constitution so as to "protect" the interests of the Kurds and Sunnis. In his view these prerogatives now endanger both "true democracy" in the country and the capacity of the central government to provide essential and basic services to the totality of the population.

Each of the three major ethnic or religious communities has been guaranteed a specific senior position in the central government with the result that the tripartite head must agree if anything major is to be done. It is a clone of the old system of allocation of offices employed in Lebanon before the comfortable arrangement was blown away in the several internal wars.

The same potential is resident within the current Iraqi situation as Maliki sees affairs. He is probably, almost certainly correct in this. While the "consensus" or office and power allocation scheme was necessary to get any organic instrument approved, it carries the germs of its own destruction within it.

Maliki proposes an accurate census be followed by a redrafting of the constitution along the lines of one person, one vote without any sort of "set asides" on the national level. The result of this would be to place the center of political power with the Shia majority. In principle this may be justified.

But, it is harder to do so in practice. The rub comes in the question of protecting the rights and, to be blunt, the community ego of the minority Sunnis and Kurds. The US has elaborate structures including the Supreme Court which carry the brief of protecting minorities against the tyranny of the majority. Even so the will of the majority often tramples both the sensitivities and the rights of the minority under foot.

Iraq does not have and will not develop in the near- to mid-term any similar institutions. There are no inherent mechanisms to assure that Sunnis and Kurds will not be ground into the dust as have been the small Christian communities in Iraq during recent months and years.

The Sunnis, who long enjoyed the exercise of power under the British and then after the Baathist overthrow of the monarchy in 1958, have no reason to believe that the Shia will treat them any more gently or with any more consideration than they treated the Shia during the long years of Sunni ascendancy. The Kurds are both very well aware of and proud of their ethnic and linguistic difference from the Arabs.

More, many Kurds are fully wedded to the idea of an independent Kurdistan as the governments of Turkey, Iran, and Iraq can attest. Under any sort of "one-person-one-vote" formula, the Kurds would have more reason than ever to seek merger with their compatriots (term used intentionally and advisedly) in Turkey and Iran.

This would, of course, send the balloon straight up, pronto.

The same would occur if the minority Sunnis appealed to their coreligionists in Saudi Arabia.

Nothing in al-Maliki's stated aspirations addresses either the Kurd or Sunni difficulty other than in terms of glittering generalities of no substance. His current over emphasis on nationalism and finger-flipping Independence from the US must be intended to counter the deep fissures which underlie the Iraqi national identity.

The validity of this approach is questionable. Both Sunnis and Kurds have demonstrated the continued will and ability to counter objectionable Shia driven central governmental acts by both the threat and use of violence.

The current capacity of the purportedly non-sectarian, non-ethnic security forces and army to be either a "school for citizenship" or an effective suppressant is open to question. So also is al-Maliki's ability to refrain from using these organs of state security as an instrument of Shia (and al-Maliki personally) domination.

An argument can be made for the desirability, even the necessity, of a strongman based central government with a few democratic trappings. This mode of autocracy wearing a skinny fig leaf of democratic respectability is commonplace throughout the Mideast and North Africa. Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Libya among others have relied on this approach for political and social stability. All have succeeded to a great extent.

In so far as Iraq has a political culture and history it is in the same mold. With the bloody overthrow of the British installed monarchy fifty years ago, Iraq became a one-party state in which dissent was poorly tolerated to say the least. The result was--until Saddam miscalculated disastrously with his launching of the Iraq-Iran War and, later, the invasion of Kuwait--a level of prosperity and stability enviable in the region.

The sanguinary effusion which followed the US invasion may have made the majority of Iraqis so war weary that the acceptance, even the eager embrace of another one-party state replete with the instruments of effective repression and some pretence of democracy is not out of the question. Al-Maliki may be counting on war weariness to bring his vision of the non-consensual democracy into existence.

His own very rapid rise from obscurity to power may have emboldened al-Maliki to believe that he has what it takes to be the strongman of Baghdad. He may be right. Or, he may not.

In any event there is no doubt that he intends to see his successful semi-coalition expand in the elections scheduled for next year. He may even be somewhat honest when he states that his "National Alliance For the State Of Law" is not a Shia instrument but rather a genuine aggregation of all Iraqis who seek a rule of law, not men nor clerics, nor outside influences.

His National Alliance has not yet provided either transparency, or a government and judicial system free of corruption, or any real coming together of the three major communities, and it may never do so. But, the National Alliance has and is creating an atmosphere of nationalism, national pride, and the appearance of national Independence even as American boots still churn the sands of Iraq.

This implies that al Maliki may have the capacity to carry off what he proposes. He may create a one-party state with both repression and aspects of democracy which will be stable or at least orderly. It is the best, realistic outcome the US government can hope for.

In the alternative, the nightmare one, Iraq dissolves under the lash of Kurdish independence, Sunni demanded intervention from Saudi Arabia and, finally, Iranian entrance to "protect" the Shia from "foreign" persecution.

Ain't democracy wonderful?

Sunni And Shi'a--Edging Toward Alliance?

The news out of Iraq riding the blast waves of suicide bombers points once again to the ongoing sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shi'a. The conventional wisdom well reinforced by daily experience is the centuries of rivalry, fear, loathing and killing which have separated Sunnis and Shi'as is alive, well and precludes any unity between the two.

Even if a common goal exists between the Islamists of both, they will never act in common. Faced by a common threat, the two will not fuse, not fight as one but constantly fritter away strengths in internecine strife.

Until recently there has been little evident reason to question the conventional wisdom. There has been no visible evidence to suggest any potential of change in the long extant dynamic.

The first real hint of rapprochement has emerged from a seemingly unlikely source, the Muslim Brotherhood. Yousef Nada posted a lengthy and well considered article on the Muslim Brotherhood's official website.

Nada contends that there is no religious justification for Sunnis to view Shi'as as apostates. Rather Twlever Shi'a should be understood as a Fifth School of Islam, an equal with the Four Schools of Sunni. He argues that the split between Sunni and Shi'a is purely political and does not represent any binding understanding of the sacred writings of Islam.

This position was criticised almost immediately by a member of the Muslim Brotherhood's Supreme Guide's staff, Mahmoud Ghazian. The response held that Nada's views were strictly personal and ran counter to the tenets of Sunni doctrine as well as the stance of the Muslim Brotherhood today as well as at its beginning.

Then came the surprise. The Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Muhammad Mahdi 'Akef, disagreed with Ghazian. The Supreme Guide concluded that Nada's position was essentially correct. That the division between Sunni and Shi'a was far more political than religious in nature.

What politics and political realities seemed to dictate ages ago, 'Akef seemed to be saying, now could be reversed in acknowledgement of shifts in the political landscape. 'Akef paid a large measure to the changes in political realities in recent decades as he assessed the impact of the Iranian Revolution on the fortunes not only of Iranian Muslims but on the Islamic community globally.

His assessment is highly favorable. Indeed, it would be quite hard for the most dedicated Iranian nationalist to find a single syllable in 'Akef's presentation which was less than laudatory for the Revolution or its leader.

Clearly there is a strong tendentious flavor to the entire three section exchange. One cannot help but suspect the entire point-counterpoint-concluding point trialogue was a set up, a pre-planned pseudo-debate with the end goal of laying the groundwork for a working relationship between the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood and the Shi'a mullahs of Iran and their clients Hezbollah and Hamas.

Perhaps the Geek should be forgiven for thinking that this Muslim Brotherhood gambit is redolent with the fragrance of the Popular Front days of Soviet diplomacy in Western Europe in the days prior to World War II. But, the idea of Iranian Shi'a mullahs climbing into bed with the Sunnis of the Muslim Brotherhood is far less disquieting in many ways than the long ago bedding of Soviet Communists with those most hated of political scum, the Socialists.

"Hold on there, Geek! Those Sunni bombers in Iraq don't seem to be in a hurry to kiss and make up with the Shi'a they are killing."

Right, bucko, so it seems. We are well advised not to play the religious motivation too heavily in the Iraqi context. In Iraq it is not religion-as-politics, but, rather, politics-as-religion. The Sunni powered, al-Qaeda denominated insurgency in Iraq is all about regaining the ascendancy lost in the wake of the American invasion. As you will recall, the long dominant Sunni minority held the Shi'a majority in political subordination and a fair degree of cultural reprobation.

The thwacking great boot of the US invasion kicked the nifty (from the Sunni perspective) status quo into small, bloody fragments. Scared, shaken and deeply angered by the sudden change in fortune, the Sunnis, who had long been more secular than observant, suddenly discovered the power of belief to motivate fighters and suicide bombers alike. Religion is a tool to be invoked, used and exploited, but the goal is rigorously political--the re-acquisition of lost power.

Similarly the Iranians have been invoking, using and exploiting the mystical faith of Shi'a and its history as a political tool. To the mullahs of Tehran it is neither a matter of politics-as-religion or religion-as-politics but rather, religion-is-politics. The very able and resolute men at the top of the Iranian religious and political structure are pursuing the goal of regional hegemony--at the very least.

The opponents of Iranian hegemony are by and large Sunni in their affiliation. The most wealthy and potentially influential of these opponents, Saudi Arabia, is not simply Sunni but of the austere, demanding Wahhibist interpretation of Sunni doctrine. The Saudi Wahhibists, not unlike the Sunni insurgents of Iraq, are playing the politics-as-religion gambit seeking to spread Saudi authority through the Mideast (and far beyond their main region of interest) by exporting Wahhibism with its intense rejection of Shi'a as apostasy.

The Muslim Brotherhood is seeking to outflank the Saudi ploy by employing a "Popular Front" strategy of seeking an apparent melding or at least an alliance between Sunni and Shi'a. The Brotherhood has a portfolio of goals starting with the re-establishment of Islam as the solid foundation of Mideast politics but extending far beyond that initial end.

The potential of even a relatively short-lived tactical alliance between Iran and the Brotherhood is (or should be) of major concern to the secularist regimes such as that of Egypt. For decades now the secular leaning rulers of Egypt, Syria, Iraq as well as the purportedly Islamic "conservative" sheikdoms of the Gulf have depended on a continuation of antipathy between Sunnis and Shi'as to continue their regimes. The Brotherhood's new gambit threatens the continuation of the so far successful approach of "divide and rule."

The imponderable in play, the perhaps "knowable unknown" is the degree to which the assorted highly inflated egos of the leadership of the Brotherhood, its "national" subordinates and the mullahs of Iran and Iraq can accommodate themselves to the requirements of a political relationship of mutual goals and shared perceptions of threat. In any uneasy alliance, the question of just who will be "first among equals" surpasses all others. Absent the sort of iron discipline that could be imposed by Joe Stalin seventy years ago, the clash of egos and parochial interests can destroy the possibilities raised by unity.

The Popular Front could and did survive the pre-war stresses of national politics and personal ego only to be shattered by the Nazi-Soviet pact in August 1939. After that fatal wound, it could never be effectively resurrected in the post-war years despite repeated Soviet efforts in that direction. The Popular Front was a weapon which could be used only once.

Whether the Muslim Brotherhood effort will prove successful to even the slightest extent is yet to be demonstrated. It is too early to predict success or failure. It is not too early to see the exchange on the Brotherhood's website as other than what it is--a wakeup call to policy makers in the West. It is a clear warning that the reign of conventional wisdom is over.

Identity Politics--It's All The Rage

Usually when the term "identity politics" is invoked one thinks of the US political tableau. For years now much of the American political dynamic has rested upon the rolicking gavotte of assorted victim groups and their competing claims for redress, protection and compensation.

Identity politics is playing an increasingly large role on the international stage. Nowhere is this more evident than on the shores of the Persian (or is Arab) Gulf. Here national affiliation either intertwines with religious and linguistic identity or wars against it.

The relation between identity politics and regional stability came into very sharp focus just over a month ago when an Iranian official, Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri , who is an advisor to Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei blandly asserted that Bahrain was not a sovereign state but rather Iran's long lost fourteenth province. Well, on one level this was no big deal. Nateq Nouri was right, sort of.

Way back when Iran was still Persia between 1602 and 1783, Bahrain was a province of the country. Later it bounced in the vacuum at the margin of the Ottoman Empire, finally enjoying (if that is the right word) the sloppy, haphazard suzerainty of the British Empire until 1970. Following a UN sponsored referendum in which the locals voted for independence rather than a return to Iranian authority, Bahrain came into sovereign existence.

Since 1971 the Tehran regime both under the Shah and the mullahs has huffed and puffed asserting its "historic" claim to the strategic outpost island. Even as recently as 2007 when the Iranians made the assertion of proprietorship the the world, the region (but not the Bahraini royal house) greeted the pronunciamiento with a yawn.

This time was different. The Arab states generally went exoatmospheric in fast-burn mode. The yowls of outrage and keening of animus culminated with Morocco severing relations with Iran.

So, why the immense escalation in reaction? Why the quick change from indifference in 2007 to the screams of Arab solidarity in the face of Persian provocation last month?

Some features of the Bahraini reality certainly have not changed. The population in the island-state is roughly two-thirds native born and one-third outlander. That percentage has not shifted appreciably in the past two decades. The majority of the population is Muslim. Again no change. The majority of the Muslims is Shia. That also isn't a new development.

The royal house and elite generally are Sunni. Once more, no change. Iranian supported subversive and terror oriented groups litter the Shia landscape. Say it again, with feeling, "No change here."

"So, what the heck has changed?" You ask.

To which question the Geek replies, "The context. Or at least a couple of essential factors in the context."

The first factor to have shifted in recent years is, to put it bluntly, Iran is getting ever more uppity. Some of this is pure talk as when President and Orator-in-Chief Ahmedinejad announced in February that Iran was now a super-power and no country in the world would consider threatening it.

But, as the Arab Gulf states well realise there is an unpleasant amount of reality beyond the Orator-in-Chief's grandiose pronouncement. The Iranians have developed an impressive military capacity which was displayed at sea in December 2008 with a series of naval exercises which demonstrated capabilities and threat potential far surpassing the Arab ability to equal, let alone counter.

Perhaps more to the point, Iran has fought a war within living memory. The war was a long, bloody stalemate yet the Iranian military demonstrated a capacity to learn as it fought. No Arab force has fought an opponent to a stand still since the Arab Legion back in the days of Glubb Pasha did so. (Not even the short-lived, even if surprising, success of the Egyptian Army in 1973 equals what the Jordanian unit did in 1948.)

Reinforcing the demonstration of Iranian military potential is the clear success of the Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon. Not only did Hezbollah inflict unacceptable losses on the IDF in the course of a poorly planned and pathetically executed Israeli incursion, the group has been politically successful beyond expectations becoming the de facto controlling force in Lebanon's government.

Even more recently the defiant attitude and policies of Hamas have added luster to the Iranian threat. Put simply the Arab states correctly see the Iranians, Shia the lot of them, have a demonstrated capacity to penetrate Sunni populations with vigorous success. As subversives, the Iranians have shown a rare talent.

The second contextual factor to have changed is an Arab loss of confidence. There are a number of contributory considerations at work here. One is the continued inability of the Arab states working in concert or individually to do anything effective in the perpetual Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Militarily the Arab states have been a nullity. They have been scarcely more effective in their application of diplomacy. Even the use of the "oil weapon" has been bootless.

The collapse of last year's oil bull market is a second fact which the Arab Gulf states must consider. Far from being immune to the economic web which entangles the globe, the oil producers can be the first to feel the baleful effects of contraction in the western economies. Members of the Arab elite blessed with a memory might recall that after the oil embargoes of the 1970s, western countries, particularly the US, embarked upon successful conservation programs which cut demand for the only revenue generator the Arabs possess.

The rhetoric in the US concerning alternative sources of energy or the moves to open off-shore fields to development represent a long-term threat to Arab financial underpinnings even as demands for increased social spending to buy regimes' peace grow apace. Making the picture bleaker is the emergence of new rivals such as Brazil's off-shore deposits and the expansion of long standing competitors such as the development of Mexico's seabeds.

The oil consideration loops into another consideration. How long will the US continue to have a national and strategic interest in the Gulf region? Since the US has more than sufficient sand to meet its requirements indefinitely, the only remaining reason for our interest in this unpleasant area has to be oil.

The day will come when the US has a sufficient alternative to Gulf oil. When that day will come is imponderable at the moment. But, (here it comes, the big "but") the hoary and somewhat irrelevant They-Put-A-Man-On-The-Moon based apprehension of the enormous potential of American technological invention and innovation is going to come sooner rather than later.

Making this apprehension teeter on the border of genuine fear is the fact that the US has a president (or at least its own Orator-in-Chief) that seems to be firmly committed to the development of alternatives to Mideast oil. And, a Congress willing to spend gigabucks in that direction.

So, how long can the feudal kingdoms of the Gulf expect the American military (including nuclear) umbrella to extend one millimeter beyond the borders of Israel? That thought can be (and apparently has become) a real stomach clencher around the Gulf littoral.

Then there is the matter of religious identity. Sunni Muslims have been comfortable for centuries looking down their collective clerical noses at the apostate Shia. Shias have always been the despised minority. They were consigned to the furthest marches of Islam, the outland of Persia, the margin of the Arab world in Iraq. Shias? Piffile!

Shia roared back with a vengeance in the Iranian Revolution. It has been roaring ever since. Fighting successfully against Iraq--even though Iraq received US support. Standing off the Great Powers led by the US and UK as Shia Iran developed its military, missile, and nuclear capacity.

Shia whispered as well. Extending its subversive tentacles throughout the Muslim states. Even reaching to the Western Hemisphere, the bailiwick of the Great Satan.

It is small wonder that Shia is seen as the superman version of Islam to so many among the youth of Islamic countries--particularly Arab states. Shia kicks butt! Youth admires butt-kickers. Youth (defined as those under 25) represents the absolute majority of the Arab population. Many, how many is one of those famed Rumsfeld "unknowable unknowns," youth are gravitating to the Shia camp.

Wahhabist and Salafist clerics as well as the states which give them homes and support are faced with a genuine challenge. From the perspective of the government either the option of confrontation or that of accommodation pose grave, possibly unacceptable risks. A choice will have to be made. The clerical tiger on which the feudal states ride will demand it.

Sunni versus Shia joins with Arab versus Iranian as the sharp and threatening dividing line within the heartland of oil and Islam. The Chimera of Arab solidarity shimmers more and more like a desert mirage.

The mullahocracy will do nothing in the near or mid-term to perfect their claim to Bahrain. The lesson of Iraqi ambitions in Kuwait is too recent. Besides that, there is no need. The need is simply to perturb the Arab states of the Gulf. That need has been filled.

By simply kicking the Arab anthill, the weaknesses, the uncertainties, the failures of Arab solidarity have been both exposed and exacerbated. The paradox is that the seeming single voice of outrage greeting the February announcement failed to disguise the weakness of both the Arab states and the Arab identity.

At the same time the boldness of the announcement, taken in context, reinforced the Shia-as-superman image which Iran has been projecting for decades. This means the appeal of Iranian branded Shiaism has been boosted in the critical target population--Arab youth.

Not bad for a single television clip, eh? But, the founder of the Revolution was the most underrated practitioner of absolutist politics in recent generations. The old Ayatollah Khomeini would be proud of his successors.